shriller

Adjective

shrill (comparative shriller, superlative shrillest)

1. High-pitched and piercing.
   • The woods rang with shrill cries of the birds.
2. Having a shrill voice.
   • "It is Miss Halliday!" cried the house-maid, as she opened the door. "And oh my," she added, looking back into the hall with a sorrowful face, "how bad she do look!" […] "Oh, don't she look white!" cried a shrill girl with a baby in her arms.1868, [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “A Dread Revelation”, in Charlotte’s Inheritance […], volume (please specify |volume I to III), London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler […], →OCLC
3. Sharp or keen to the senses.
   • Rather than shrill, feisty whites tasting of grass, green beans, gooseberry or pipi de chat (the somehow more polite French term for cat's pee), [Didier] Dagueneau's Sauvignons were statuesque, beautifully balanced wines with flavors reminiscent of citrus zests, apricot, fig, passion fruit and...2010 October 14, Jacqueline Friedrich, “Son follows in late winemaker Didier Dagueneau’s storied footsteps”, in Los Angeles Times, archived from the original on 01 Dec 2017
4. (derogatory, figuratively) Especially of a woman: fierce, loud, strident.
   • The clerk had, I'm afraid, a shrew of a wife, shrill, vehement, and fluent.1863, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Church-yard. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Tinsley, Brothers, […], →OCLC

See all 6 meanings of shrill